www.theplantlist.org

[cray man]

I'd like to know opinions here on if the species names found at www.theplantlist.org should be considered the accepted names.  I found a few grass names that differ from inat's names.

[Andre Hos]

I thought observado.org used the plantlist..but it seems they don't:

The plant list has many mistakes occording to the tropen theplantlist staat voor de tropen helaas nog vol fouten. Theplantlist gebruikt 3 databases voor beslissingen over synonymy, S. nudiflora staat maar in 1 van die 3 databases (tropicos): http://www.tropicos.org/Name/7202026?tab=acceptednames en daar zeggen ze dat het een synoniem is vanwege de flora malesiana uit 1954: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28682620#page/159/mode/1up
https://forum.waarneming.nl/smf/index.php?topic=414267.msg2177017#msg2177017 

Ja, voor Peru en tropisch amerika is tropicos de beste optie, voor Europa de euromed plantbase en voor Afrika deze database: http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/recherche.php. Voor Azië en Australië weet ik het niet.

[bouteloua]

iNaturalist's policies regarding taxonomic authorities for plants are listed on the Curator Guide: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#policies

For vascular plants, these authorities cover plants that occur in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, California, New England, and the southeastern US. You could use The Plant List for species not covered by these authorities, but I'd generally check with other more up-to-date resources too... It's not complete yet, but Plants of the World Online is generally more up-to-date. http://plantsoftheworldonline.org If something looks incorrect on iNat, flag it for curation and a curator can take a look.

cassi

[jdmore]

The hard truth is that every list and flora you can find is out of date as soon as you see it, including those adopted by iNaturalist.  The larger and more ambitious the compilation, generally the more it lags behind the current science.  This is not at all an indictment of those brave folks who do the compiling - it's just the nature of the beast.  Taxonomy is always a work in progress.  As a working plant taxonomist, I can find things to disagree with in any list (except my own, of course ;-).  That said, in a system set up like iNaturalist to depend on a few "standard" taxonomic authorities, one has to learn to live with uneven and sometimes outdated classification.  I've been learning to swallow that as a necessary concession to continuing the invaluable work that iNaturalist enables.

Without digging very deep into the specific list you mentioned, I expect it is like any other, more up to date and authoritative for some groups and less so for others, depending on their sources, how much maintenance they do, and what groups are currently being studied.

--Jim Morefield

[Scott Loarie]

The current policies are to follow the Plant List (TPL). But as you
mention it hasn't been updated since 2011. A few of iNat curators and
myself have been in touch with Kew about the new
http://plantsoftheworldonline.org (POWO) which as of this week is
complete (ie has Asteraceae) https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/260507.

I'm almost done writing a little post to kick off the discussion about
switching references from the TPL to POWO (I did a little analysis
comparing TPL to POWO) and to discuss some best practices for
minimizing disruption with taxon changes. I hope to have this out in
the next few days.

I think switching from TPL to POWO will be fairly uncontroversial
since its much more up to date, but I'd prefer to have these materials
out / discussion before switching to minimize confusion / disruption

Scott

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Scott R. Loarie, Ph.D.
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
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[marigo...@gmail.com]

I just looked up Parentucellia viscosa (yellow glandweed) on Plants of the World Online. They have the "right" botanical name (the one I like for it.) But they don't list it as introduced here. And here in Mendocino County, California, it's pretty common now. A beautiful immigrant wildflower!

 

Will we update to their botanical name? Calflora uses Parentucellia viscosa, and Wikipedia, the usda, Jepson eflora, and Cabi also.

 I flagged it for curation last year but it just went into a discussion of their being no agreed upon botanical authority now. And I agree! : ) 

[Scott Loarie]

Hi folks,

Here's the proposal I mentioned to adopt Plants of the World Online as
a taxonomic reference for iNaturalist Vascular Plants
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gNwJRDUJQ8sqTz_oJrMiABqFVXkLRkOd2_4Y2LH6Uic/edit?usp=sharing
I also included this in a flag here
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/265216

curious to hear your thoughts,

Scott

[marigo...@gmail.com]

Very good proposal, Scott !!

I especially liked that you told how it differed from APG (since that's been my favorite).

Appreciating all the work that you put into this!! Looks good to me. 

[jdmore]

Scott, this works for me too, with a couple of caveats:

It works only as long as Kew actively and critically curates POWO.  If for any reason it later falls into disrepair (like TPL and pretty much all other predecessors), how easy or hard will it be for iNaturalist to "recover" from dependence on POWO as primary?  Not a question to which I know the answer, but something to ponder...

And a related question: will the iNaturalist version of POWO always be the active version at Kew, or will it be a periodic snapshot of the Kew version?

Finally, my sense is that there is a lean toward splitting Boraginaceae s.l. into the smaller APG families going forward.  Maybe worth double-checking with Kew on their rationale/plans for maintaining Boraginaceae s.l. at this point?  Hopefully re-parenting taxa at the family level is not too big a deal for iNaturalist whichever way it swings, but I haven't yet experienced the fun of taxon curation in iNaturalist either!

On behalf of plant taxonomists everywhere, thanks for your efforts on this!

--Jim Morefield